Web CMS is Beneficial, but should you Opt for it? Which are the Best Open Source CMS Platforms?

We looked at the benefits of using CMS for your website in the last post. If any of the points were relevant to you and would ease your routine- a CMS would be beneficial to you. Different people have different relevance and thus even if a CMS can save a few minutes a day- in the long run it would benefit you.

What about Budget?

This is the first important deciding factor for a website CMS.

No doubt most CMS are open source but you need to incur up-front expenditure to set up & integrate your current site to a CMS.

Along with the initial investment, on-going maintenance cost is also to be incurred if you constantly need functional changes.

So if you want to setup a website with minimum cost, a web CMS might not be a good option for you.

My Requirements!

Decision to opt for a CMS is also dependent on your requirements.

If you are looking for a website that is dynamic and intuitive then a website designed using CMS can be the only choice. If you want to bring innovation into your website and update it regularly then a website CMS is a good option. If you are into a business like eCommerce or running your own portal that requires constant revisions and updates of the content, then you can’t have a static website as it would mean hours of manual work.

Contributing Team

The size of your Content Contributing Team is an important determinant.

If there’s only one person updating the site content, a static website can do. In case of larger businesses where your business demands continuous update of information from different people, then static website becomes a problem. If the team size of content contributors is large, a CMS driven website can be used where different access rights can be given to each of them and content can be updated by numerous people from different locations of the world.

Functionalities

Whether you need a CMS or not will be dependent on the functionalities you need in your website.

For example if you want to have a user feedback form, you can’t have it without a CMS. If you are looking to have a forum or community as well, you will need CMS to support chats, forums, comments etc. If you want your customers’ requests to directly integrate with your CRM software instead of emails, to address their issues promptly, you can’t do that without a CMS.

CMS will make your website interactive and enable easy communication with the target audiences.

Few Recommended Open Source CMS Platforms

Drupal

Drupal is a powerful and customizable CMS backed by an active developer community. It is an open-source CMS that allows publishing and managing of a variety of your site’s content easily. Even Drupal has thousands of live websites across various sectors. Drupal has numerous built-in functionalities and a large number of free add-on modules available. It is user-friendly and easy to deploy, offers scalability and gives you the option to select from various free themes and modules available to give a customized look to your site. It has ready documentation available along with support forum discussions.

WordPress

WordPress is the ultimate choice for blog management and is one of the most preferred open-source CMSs today. Thousands of WordPress sites are live today backed by a dedicated community of developers. It is a flexible platform allowing you to customize with the help of plugins. There are numerous WordPress themes available for download: free as well as premium ones. WordPress has ready documentation as well as support community available for your guidance and resolution of your issues.

Joomla

Joomla is also a great open-source platform to build simple as well as scalable websites. It has free extensions and templates available, helping you to extend the functionality of Joomla. It is user-friendly, powerful, flexible and allows adding numerous pages. It has many innovative & out-of-the-box features, allowing you to make quick design changes. With amazing built-in capabilities, it is easy to install and use, helping build complex and large websites.

You need to understand that getting a CMS for your website is an investment rather than an expense. Under certain circumstances it is not only beneficial but also necessary to have a CMS for your website, but in other situations a CMS might even lead to unnecessary expenses. You have to consider the above mentioned factors before choosing the one for you.

Semaphore Software specializes in providing end-to-end CMS development services with a proficiency in providing WordPress, Joomla as well as Drupal CMS solutions. We can assist you in building a CMS driven website using various leading CMS platforms, in expanding their functionality through our extensions and also helping you in migrating from one platform to another.

Feel free to contact us through info@semaphore-software.com for your CMS needs!!